Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff » A random, unplanned network

March 02, 2006 | Comments: (0)

A random, unplanned network

TAGS: Networking

While the notion of municipal Wi-Fi networks is still nascent -- though increasingly moving toward the status of inevitability -- the city of Cambridge, MA, is building a mesh network that would enable residents to access the Internet from bus stops or city parks.

From the Technology Review article:

The project is based on an experimental system called Roofnet, an unplanned, multiroute mesh network developed at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. A mesh network is a series of radio transmitters and receivers randomly dispersed over an area. To get data from one part of the mesh to another, the network must figure out the best route between them, which can change depending on network traffic, data rates, and even the weather.

Roofnet, the story points out, has already been operating for about three years in a limited area around MIT, and "the original idea was to exploit the benefits of a random, unplanned network."

Similar to the municipal Wi-Fi networks emerging in cities such as Philadelphia and San Francisco, Cambridge's mesh network brings a special focus on providing Internet access to the low-income residents otherwise on the 'have-not' side of the digital divide.

N.B. Cambridge's mesh network is based on protocols developed at MIT, the owner of Technology Review.

Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 2, 2006 10:01 AM

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